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Nick Strayer
I have made visualizations viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, sped up query times for 25 terabytes of data by an average of 4,800 times, and built packages for R that let you do magic.
Currently searching for a data science position that allows me to build tools using visualization and machine learning to help people explore and understand their data.
Education
Master’s
Online
Arizona State University
2025 - 2023
- Program Analysis and Data Analytics
- Coursework includes: Multiple & Advanced Regression courses, Data Wrangling, Research Design, R Programming, Community Analytics, Organizational Behavior
Bachelor’s of Science
Rexburg, ID
Brigham Young University - Idaho
2021 - 2017
- Social Work
- Coursework included: Psychology & Sociology courses, Political Science and International Studies courses, Research & Analysis courses, Statistics courses, Python, Drugs of Use and Abuse, Child Welfare, etc.
Research Experience
Contract Investigator
Alexandria, VA
Peraton
Current - 2024
- Retained by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to conduct national security background investigations for employment purposes.
Research Associate
Alexandria, VA
Oberg Research
Current - 2024
- Assist in the design of Oberg Research’s audience research and evaluation projects and the analysis of data for their clients.
Instructional Designer
Alexandria, VA
Blake Learning Solutions
2024
- Assisted in the design and building of different curriculum and courses for Blake Learn’s clients.
Nonprofit Advocate
Washington, D.C.
Threshold Giving
2024 - 2023
- Retained by the International Rescue Committee to educate the public on their mission and canvas for funds.
Investigator/Alternative Response Worker
Austin, TX
Child Protective Investigations, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
2023 - 2022
- Investigated claims of child abuse & neglect and worked with families to remove barriers and provide services.
Industry Experience
I have worked in a variety of roles ranging from journalist to software engineer to data scientist. I like collaborative environments where I can learn from my peers.
Probation Intern
Rexburg, ID
Tri-County Probation
2021
- Worked with adult misdemeanor probation clients in the Drug Court and Mental Health Court programs.
Teaching Assistant
Rexburg, ID
Brigham Young University - Idaho
2021 - 2020
- Tutored students, graded assignments, and provided feedback for Introductory Statistics.
Warehouse Associate
Sparks, NV
Chewy
2020
- Packed boxes for shipping and reloaded pallets and shelves. Forklift certified.
Call Center Representative
Rexburg, ID
Clear Insights
2019
- Administered a variety of surveys over the phone, including customer satisfaction surveys and political surveys.
Teaching Experience
I am passionate about education. I believe that no topic is too complex if the teacher is empathetic and willing to think about new methods of approaching task.
Missionary
Albania
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
2019 - 2018
- Served the people of Albania. Taught English classes. Assigned to train other missionaries and mentor a new missionary. Fluent in Albanian.
Data Visualization Best Practices
N/A
DataCamp
2019
- Designed from bottom up course to teach best practices for scientific visualizations.
- Uses R and ggplot2.
- In top 10% on platform by popularity.
Improving your visualization in Python
N/A
DataCamp
2019
- Designed from bottom up course to teach advanced methods for enhancing visualization.
- Uses python, matplotlib, and seaborn.
Accompanist
Elko, NV
Adobe Middle School
2017
- Provided piano accompaniment to the Adoble Middle School choir.
Piano Teacher
Elko, NV
Self-Employed
2017 - 2013
- Provided in-person, individualized piano lessons with music theory to children from ages 5-17, from beginner to advanced.
Selected Data Science Writing
I regularly blog about data science and visualization on my blog LiveFreeOrDichotomize.
Using AWK and R to Parse 25tb
N/A
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
2019
- Story of parsing large amounts of genomics data.
- Provided advice for dealing with data much larger than disk.
- Reached top of HackerNews.
Classifying physical activity from smartphone data
N/A
RStudio Tensorflow Blog
2018
- Walk through of training a convolutional neural network to achieve state of the art recognition of activities from accelerometer data.
- Contracted article.
The United States of Seasons
N/A
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
2018
- GIS analysis of weather data to find the most ‘seasonal’ locations in United States
- Used Bayesian regression methods for smoothing sparse geospatial data.
A year as told by fitbit
N/A
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
2017
- Analyzing a full years worth of second-level heart rate data from wearable device.
- Demonstrated visualization-based inference for large data.
MCMC and the case of the spilled seeds
N/A
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
2017
- Full Bayesian MCMC sampler running in your browser.
- Coded from scratch in vanilla Javascript.
The Traveling Metallurgist
N/A
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
2017
- Pure javascript implementation of traveling salesman solution using simulated annealing.
- Allows reader to customize the number and location of cities to attempt to trick the algorithm.
Selected Press (About)
Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ app
N/A
Science
2017
- Story of the app Papr made with Jeff Leek and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan.
Swipe right for science: Papr app is ‘Tinder for preprints’
N/A
Nature News
2017
- Second press article for app Papr.
The Deeper Story in the Data
N/A
University of Vermont Quarterly
2016
- Story on my path post graduation and the power of narrative.
Selected Press (By)
The Great Student Migration
N/A
The New York Times
2016
- Most shared and discussed article from the New York Times for August 2016.
Wildfires are Getting Worse, The New York Times
N/A
The New York Times
2016
- GIS analysis and modeling of fire patterns and trends
- Data in collaboration with NASA and USGS
Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?
N/A
The New York Times
2016
- Data scraped from CSPAN records to figure out who talked and past conventions.
Who’s Speaking at the Republican National Convention?
N/A
The New York Times
2016
- Used same data scraping techniques as Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?
A Trail of Terror in Nice, Block by Block
N/A
The New York Times
2016
- Led research effort to put together story of 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in less than 12 hours.
- Work won Silver medal at Malofiej 2017, and gold at Society of News and Design.
Selected Publications, Posters, and Talks
Charge Reductions Associated with Shortening Time to Recovery in Septic Shock
N/A
Chest
2019
- Authored with Wesley H. Self, MD MPH; Dandan Liu, PhD; Stephan Russ, MD, MPH; Michael J. Ward, MD, PhD, MBA; Nathan I. Shapiro, MD, MPH; Todd W. Rice, MD, MSc; Matthew W. Semler, MD, MSc.
Multimorbidity Explorer | A shiny app for exploring EHR and biobank data
N/A
RStudio::conf 2019
2019
- Contributed Poster. Authored with Yaomin Xu.
Taking a network view of EHR and Biobank data to find explainable multivariate patterns
N/A
Vanderbilt Biostatistics Seminar Series
2019
- University wide seminar series.
Patient-specific risk factors independently influence survival in Myelodysplastic Syndromes in an unbiased review of EHR records
N/A
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
2019
- Bayesian network analysis used to find novel subgroups of patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS).
- Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
Patient specific comorbidities impact overall survival in myelofibrosis
N/A
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
2019
- Bayesian network analysis used to find robust novel subgroups of patients with given genetic mutations.
- Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
R timelineViz: Visualizing the distribution of study events in longitudinal studies
N/A
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
2018
- Authored with Alex Sunderman of the Vanderbilt Department of Epidemiology.
Continuous Classification using Deep Neural Networks
N/A
Vanderbilt Biostatistics Qualification Exam
2017
- Review of methods for classifying continuous data streams using neural networks
- Successfully met qualifying examination standards
Asymmetric Linkage Disequilibrium: Tools for Dissecting Multiallelic LD
N/A
Journal of Human Immunology
2015
- Authored with Richard Single, Vanja Paunic, Mark Albrecht, and Martin Maiers.
An Agent Based Model of Mysis Migration
N/A
International Association of Great Lakes Research Conference
2015
- Authored with Brian O’Malley, Sture Hansson, and Jason Stockwell.
Declines of Mysis diluviana in the Great Lakes
N/A
Journal of Great Lakes Research
2015
- Authored with Peter Euclide and Jason Stockwell.
Social Media Manager/Office Assistant
Alexandria, VA
Foxglove Flowers LLC
2024